SEC
Wazzu keeps SEC in one place: 3 stories so far. The section currently leads with “David Riley says next year's roster has more talent walking in than last year's”, “Ace Glass trades Crimson for Gold as fourth Coug exits Pullman”, and “Are blowouts getting worse? The Pac-12 mailbag crunches the numbers”. David Riley isn't sugarcoating last season. Ace Glass is gone. The unofficial read for people who left Pullman and stayed Cougs. The list below is every SEC story on Wazzu, newest first.
David Riley says next year's roster has more talent walking in than last year's
David Riley isn't sugarcoating last season. 12-20 stinks. He knows it. We know it. But he's got a new roster, and he's not shy about the upgrade. "We have a lot more talent walking in the door than we did last year," Riley said Friday. That's not coachspeak. That's a guy who watched his entire starting five walk out for a combined $10 million in NIL deals elsewhere. Ace Glass to Vanderbilt. ND Okafor to Mississippi State. All of them. Riley's take? He 10x'd their value. Good for them. But now he's got to win with the next wave. And the next wave is eleven newcomers. Nine from the portal, one freshman, one prep alum. Plus two returners. That's almost a full teardown and rebuild in one spring. Riley says the timing helped this time, players bailed early, so the staff had more runway to find replacements. Last year's chaos didn't repeat. The names are interesting. Sebastian Akins from Wake Forest is a physical guard who can score at all three levels. Lazerek Houston is a DII MVP with pro potential. Ladji Dembele brings a 7-2 wingspan from Iowa and UNLV. Riley thinks this group has higher confidence and higher talent than last year's haul. We'll see. But it's worth noting the Cougs also just scheduled Duke in Palm Springs for November. That's a measuring stick. And the Battle of the Palouse is back for two years, which means more games that actually mean something to people who live here.
Ace Glass trades Crimson for Gold as fourth Coug exits Pullman
Ace Glass is gone. The freshman who dropped 40 on Arizona State in Maui, broke WSU's single-season scoring record, and shot 88% from the line is taking his game to Vanderbilt. He announced it Friday. That makes four Cougs out of the ten who hit the portal who have found a new home, and this one stings the most. Glass was the guy last season. 16.4 points per game, All-WCC second team, all-freshman. He scored in double figures in all but five games. He hit a game-winning and-one against LMU at home. He was the reason you kept watching when the season went sideways. Now he's heading to the SEC to play with Tyler Tanner, who just got Vanderbilt back to the Tournament for the first time in nine years. The money part is real. Glass was a four-star who originally signed with Texas A&M. When Buzz Williams left, he reopened things and chose WSU for the family feel. This time, Vanderbilt likely made him an offer the Cougs couldn't match. That's the world now. But the roster isn't empty. The Cougs have added five new guys, including a D-II guard who averaged 20 points as a true freshman. We've got more on that in the piece about the Providence guard who just committed. Go Cougs.
Are blowouts getting worse? The Pac-12 mailbag crunches the numbers
Yes, blowouts are getting worse, and the numbers back it up. Through Week 3, the average point differential in non-conference games involving the big four conferences plus Notre Dame hit 27.8 points, the largest since at least 2000. That's more than double the 13.2-point margin from 2001. When you strip out Power Four vs. Power Four games and look only at the mismatches, the average jumps to 34.6 points. The trend line is climbing every year, and it started climbing right when NIL became law in 2021 and the transfer portal opened up. Money flows up. Talent follows. The Hotline doesn't let the Big Ten off the hook here. Twenty-eight percent of the conference isn't playing a single opponent from the ACC, Big 12, or SEC this season. Nebraska, Indiana, USC, Washington, and Penn State all filled their non-conference slots with Group of Six or FCS teams. That's weak sauce, and it's why Fox ended up airing Ohio State-Kent State in its Big Noon window. The sport is flattening at the top while thinning out everywhere else. The Hotline calls it a mushroom cloud shape. That feels right. If you want to see how this plays out in Pullman, read "One good half doesn't change what Duquesne was." It's the same story, just closer to home.